The real reason why repeated attempts to silence the argument against Brexit are so dangerous is that by claiming democratic authority for their position the Brexiteer faction – for that is what they remain – demonstrate a profound misunderstanding of the nature of democracy itself.They reduce a democratic culture to the status of a transaction. The voters are asked a question; they provide an answer; go, do.
No democrat should entertain this diminished understanding of democracy for a single moment. Real life is lived in real time. Circumstances change; reality changes; opinions change. Democracy is the means by which the ministers who make these decisions are subject to constant challenge, and required to provide day by day explanation and justification for the actions they take in our name.
Far from improving the accountability of decision-makers, the effect of the EU referendum has been to provide ministers with a shield which prevents their decisions being questioned. The democratic question is who makes the decisions and how are they accountable?
The EU answer is that the Single Market, supported by the Customs Union, has allowed us to make these decisions in ways which balance different interests and create an open market across Europe for the resulting goods and services... it has underwritten both continued expansion of the economies of Western Europe, including our own, and the successful development of the economies of central Europe following the collapse of their Russian-inspired communist regimes at the end of the 1980s. It has also underwritten an unprecedented growth of trade between Europe and the rest of the world.
The result has been not merely the creation of the world’s largest free trade area but, much more importantly, the development for the first time in history of open liberal societies across the whole of Europe; and it has allowed Europe as a whole to play a full part in the development of liberal societies across the globe. By any normal political standards this would be regarded as a stunning success.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-eu-voters-must-be-allowed-to-change-their-mind-labour-policy-hammond-national-interest-a7929421.html
Not much separates a democracy from a tyranny or a straight-up anarchy for all that. Democracy was once a synonym for anarchy. What we call democracy only features democratic elections. Thereafter, we delegate to elected representatives, granting them enough mandate to make the tough decisions.
ReplyDeleteAll this about how Capital D Democracy is the means by which the ministers who make these decisions are subject to constant challenge, and required to provide day by day explanation and justification for the actions they take in our name - any government which can be swayed on the basis of the last poll or some news squib cannot govern. That's mob rule. Without mandate, no assembly can govern. That's precisely why Brexit is failing so abysmally: nobody in government can say "Brexit is populist nonsense of the most destructive sort: we have a body to correct shortcomings in the present system, we can use them."
Democracy is precisely why Brexit came about. Vox populi vox dei. Everyone knows Brexit is bad business, from PM May to that leathery old vulture Corbyn - but [waves arms about contumaciously] - "The people have spoken!" Therefore none of them will stand up to oppose Brexit on any meaningful basis.
And what's this? "Of course we must hear the voters’ voice. But democracy is a dialogue in which all voices should be heard. And it must allow voters to change their mind." Were another referendum to be held tomorrow, the same idjits who voted for Brexit would do so again.
any government which can be swayed on the basis of the last poll or some news squib cannot govern
ReplyDeleteTrue, but a government which takes no account of the facts or a widespread, continued, growing opposition to its position cannot govern either. U-turns are generally inadvisable, but seldom derail a government, much less civilisation. Hell, May is renowned for doing bizarre u-turns and muddling on regardless. She should do another one ASAP.
The referendum was a wholly undemocratic choice because the question was so vague as to be meaningless, not to mention that it was legally non-binding. Vox populi vox dei ? There was no voice of the people to a hard Brexit. There wasn't even a voice as to when we should leave. There was no voice at all because the referendum question was absurdly, insanely narrow. You can't give people a voice if you don't actually ask them what they want - whatever that is, it isn't democracy. It's reducing the decision process so far that it isn't even representative democracy any more. Like bad fan fiction, it's just a bunch of clowns making stuff up.
So the people haven't spoken. Yet the leaders insist we must get the absolute worst form of government possible, as fast as possible. This is an insane presumption of what it was the people were actually saying that has exactly zero justification.
It's not democracy per se that's responsible - there wasn't even much interest in the EU except by the hardcore lunatics until the referendum came along. No, it's a far more toxic and complex mix of the particular set of wrong lizards we happen to have in charge, coupled with a mass manipulation of social media, a failure of certain sectors to sing the EU's praises (because we thought they were bloody obvious), and a press who are largely enthralled to a bunch of billionaire lunatics. Oh, and democracy as well, but not by itself.
Were another referendum to be held tomorrow, the same idjits who voted for Brexit would do so again.
That's true but only very provisionally :
http://whatukthinks.org/eu/questions/if-there-was-a-referendum-on-britains-membership-of-the-eu-how-would-you-vote-2/
This is why I specifically reserve the term Brexiteer to refer only to hardcore idiots, and not as a catch-all for everyone who happened to vote Leave on the day in question. Brexiteers would indeed vote the same way again, but that doesn't mean the referendum would have the same result. There's no evidence that that's the case at all.
You know this bit from Men in Black:
ReplyDeleteEdwards: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.
The Brexiteers drove that goddamn Big Red Bus around, told everyone a pack of lies, incited the mob - we've been corresponding quite a while, I would be repeating myself to say Cameron made the foolish promise to have that referendum, then scarpered when it went through. But Labour are hardly blameless in all this, permit me an Old Man Noise or three at this point, since the accession to EU in the early 70s, they've been grumbling about how horribly the UK has been treated. There was another referendum in 1975, all through the 80s they were whinging about it, the whole wretched entry and exit of the pound sterling from the Exchange Rate Mechanism - because of its piecewise and grudging entrance into the EU, the UK was always liable to exit on the most specious of excuses, in the last case, immigration.
The UK voter is too stupid to stand upright and carry a plate of biscuits in front of himself. The EU referendum was entirely democratic, in the most cursedly obvious of the definitions of that word. The people spoke alright, as they always do: dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it , led about by some well-heeled rabble rouser. If the USA is plagued with the Trumpkins, the UK has UKIP, cut like so many cookies from the same cutter. Auden in 1939:
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
But Labour are hardly blameless in all this,
ReplyDeleteTrue enough, though for the last 20 years or more they've been rabidly pro-EU. Corbyn, that walking anachronism, is just about the only anti-EU element left in the party.
The UK voter is too stupid to stand upright and carry a plate of biscuits in front of himself.
The average UK voter is overworked, misinformed, and increasingly underpaid thanks to Tory "austerity" policies. He's looking for a scapegoat. And I repeat, there's no evidence that the EU was on the top of his agenda prior to the referendum nor a shred of evidence that the vote would go the same way again.
The EU referendum was entirely democratic,
It wasn't though, except in the incredibly crude sense that a vote was cast. Here's a more explicit example of a meaningless vote.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+RhysTaylorRhysy/posts/K5wVRNb8V4Z
Rhys Taylor However rabid Labour's support might have been, when push came to shove, they collapsed like a badly-baked souffle. It's truly disgraceful.
ReplyDeletelabour.org.uk - I'm voting Labour to negotiate a better Brexit
Corbyn maintains his grip on Labour because the rest of them are useless and pliable. None of them dare come out and tell the truth. Cowardly lions, the lot of them.
No argument there Dan. One of my biggest disappointments of Labour's behaviour.
ReplyDeleteRhys Taylor A virulently nasty little man once said this of the Americans:
ReplyDelete"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
I've watched democracy evolve for a long time now. Devolve, truth to tell. Since Reagan, over here, it's been one disingenuous asshole after another, each more disingenuous than his predecessor.
Even Obama, that little weasel, who promised us much and delivered nothing of substance: his Obamacare was a dog's breakfast, cobbled together from bits of "market-based solutions" . He presided over the creation of a vast police state - nobody ever points that out. His Attorney General, the cretinous Eric Holder, wouldn't prosecute those banksters.
Hillary Clinton, that ambitious old twat, serving us last week's dodgy saag paneer off the Democrats' rusty old steam table. And she's still at it, still slagging Bernie Sanders, even today.
And Kamala Harris, who took two million dollars from that thief Steve Mnuchin, the current Secretary of the Treasury, whose bank fraudulently foreclosed on tens of thousands of homes in California - and wouldn't prosecute him - this is whom the Democrats would tell us is our Bright Shiny Future.
I feel, at turns, as if I have become a bug-eyed bearded prophet of the most rantiferous and unpleasant sort. I have lost my faith in democracy. Completely lost my faith in humankind. In a world where nobody tells the truth, it is only a question of which liar can stir up the bowels of the worst among us.